An Emergency Meeting
Posted September 6th, 2009, 3:51 PM ET

I just returned from our first Southern Fried Football™ Tour stop of the season.

We didn't arrive back from Atlanta until around 4:45 in the morning, and I was looking forward to getting a little sleep on Sunday morning and not being disturbed by the wife, the kids or even my trusty four-legged companion, Chester.

Around 7:30, I received a phone call and I knew immediately it was an emergency. The urgent phone call was from the Southern Fried Football™ Board of Governors. Apparently, they were following me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/MarkPacker) and were not happy about my live tweets from Atlanta leading into the match-up between the Top 10 football powers.

I made a couple of references during Saturday's visit to Atlanta that the "scenery" provided by the Virginia Tech and Alabama babes was less than flattering. In fact, I mentioned via twitter that in all of the Southern Fried Football™ Tour stops, it was the worst collection of "talent" that I could ever remember.

Granted, it was a neutral site. We were in the middle of downtown Atlanta. The tailgating set-up is not ideal, but you make the best of a bad situation. Despite the gathering of cultures, there wasn't enough quality displayed by either school to justify putting any pics on the "Babes" page.

If I saw another babe trying to wear a "houndstooth" dress while sporting a gut, I was going to throw up. I know the NASCAR race was in town, too....but this was a bad combination. Wearing an Earnhardt t-shirt with "Roll, Tide, Roll" printed on the back doesn't cut it.

Let's face it: a gobbler is not the most picturesque creature on the planet, and apparently the Hokie's finest decided they could make a fashion statement with the maroon and orange along with turkey references.

Look at the flip side, at least their football teams are good. They are better than good...they're damn good. And both fan bases are rabid, intense and knowledgeable. But making the cut on the Babes page was a different story on Saturday's Southern Fried Football™ opener.

But what makes Southern Fried Football™ great is not only the high quality football, but the entire tailgating experience. It was our first visit to Atlanta in quite some time, and perhaps we'll be back for a Georgia Tech game, the SEC title tilt, or maybe next year's LSU-UNC season opener at the Georgia Dome.

Back to the phone call....for the first time ever, the Board of Governors complained about the lack of eye candy on a game day trip, and if we couldn't capture it on film, that it hurts the website and the justification of traveling to not only Blacksburg, Virginia or even Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

I pleaded the case that both Virginia Tech and Alabama have been great places to visit for not only the tailgating, great fans and the football, but we never had a problem with the sweethearts, too. (Plus, I'm married to a beautiful and classy Hokie.)

Perhaps it was all about timing....Labor Day weekend, neutral site, and the fragmented parking set-up with too many parking decks and nasty neighborhoods around the Dome.

The Board of Governors finally agreed with my plea, but they are keeping a watchful eye...they don't like it when they feel certain coeds are not carrying the tradition of Southern Fried Football™.

I assured them that it will be different when we get back on campus, which will be the case in Chapel Hill on September 19th. Needless to say, I'm hoping the UNC coeds along with the ECU sweeties will be out and about when we show up in Chapel Hill.

I'm counting on you.